CHENNAI: Although the Indian school system puts students through long years of academic rigour, it doesn’t go far in terms of making them job-ready. While students of engineering are unable to handle a welding machine, the country has continued to surge on its academia-drawn tangent, forgetting skill-building along its trajectory, felt a ThinkEdu Conclave panel that included Union Minister for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy.
“Since independence there has been emphasis on education, but our schools have completely missed the bus on skill-building,” said Rudy. “If I gave any one of you a spanner and asked you to fix something, would you be able to?” Rudy asked.
R Ravichander, group president (South), Yes Bank, opined that skill-building would be possible if each of the top 500 industries in India partnered with one institution every year. “If each company can provide skill-training for 1,000 students, we will create lakhs of trained and employable youth every year,” he said.
Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca Cola, attributed the skill deficit to the Indian desire for a white collar job. “Although stressing on the knowledge quotient we don’t impart skill. This is why in India we create intelligent, knowledgeable youngsters who have no idea how to go out and work in the field. They can’t go sell to a retailer, work in a factory or man a workstation,” he said. He added there was a cultural misconception against blue-collared jobs in India as opposed to in the western countries where not being able to do household electrical work, for instance, is looked down upon.